Wicked Lips? Try Balms, Glosses, and Sticks


by Clara Myers - Date: 2007-02-01 - Word Count: 371 Share This!

In your mothers day, there was lipstick and ChapStick®--that's it. Today we have an assortment of lip products that have been flavored, scented, and enhanced with plumpers, vitamins, and sunscreen. The current trend is to add botanicals that appeal to the senses so you will find many products with appealing smells and tastes. Here's the breakdown:

Lip Balm Sometimes lip balm is referred to as lip salve. In either case the primary purpose of the stuff is to protect and/or relieve dry lips damaged by weather. Sometimes medicinal extracts will be added to heal cold sores. Usually the base is beeswax or petroleum jelly. Manufacturers can add anything to this base and often do. Formulations with sunscreen, vitamins, and even aspirin are available.

Lip Gloss

Primarily used to give the lips shine, lip gloss is often marketed to young girls by featuring glosses in the same flavors as candy and fruit. When targeted toward older women, glosses are often packaged as plumpers by including chemicals such as MaxiLip.

Lip Plumpers

Lip plumpers do work but the effect is temporary. You have to reapply to maintain the look which is fine for most folks because the product will moisturize and add color as well.

Lipstick

Women have used lipstick since Cleopatra's time. Traditional recipes include olive oil, mineral oil, castor oil, cocoa butter, lanolin, and/or petrolatum. Current formulas include vitamin E, aloe vera, collagen, and sunscreen. The point of lipstick is to add color to the lips and moisturize. The variations in color are truly amazing--mattes, sheers, frosted, stains, not to mention long-lasting color versions.

Because lip products are often flavored, this encourages licking of the lips which dries them out and causes you to reapply. Try putting an unscented, unflavored lip balm on when you go to bed. This will give you an overnight moisturizing treatment. In the morning apply your favorite flavored and/or scented product.

Do I have a favorite? No. There's far to many formulations for me to pick one. I do prefer shea butter formulas and balms that have intense color. There's also the glosses that have vitamins--gotta love those. Then there are those sheer glosses that go on light. They're nice in the summer and go great over lipstick. . . er, no I don't have a favorite.


Related Tags: lipstick, lips, lip balm, lip gloss

© 2007, Clara Myers. Visit the lips catetory at Great-Face.com to find a variety of lip care products. Great-Face.com offers spa-quality skin care products and information from around the Web on how to care for great skin.

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